ATLANTA - Three times in the past two weeks, someone has snuck into Atlanta-area construction sites, hot-wired forklifts or other machines, then taken them to nearby banks to yank ATMs off their concrete bases.
According to a report in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, a photo taken by an ATM camera at one of the banks shows a man knocking the machine off its base using construction equipment.
The crooks loaded ATMs onto trucks they had stolen earlier. The trucks, with the ATMs inside, were found days later, either abandoned in a remote area or, as Suwanee police Capt. Clyde Byers said, "burned to a crisp."
The thefts began June 18 when a bulldozer was stolen from a construction site and used to pluck an ATM off its base at a Homestate Bank branch in Suwanee. The surveillance video shows the crook took enough care to put on a hardhat first.
The box van the ATM was loaded into was found in Oconee County a few days later, burned to its core. About $13,000 was stolen from the machine. The machine itself was worth $47,000, Byers said.
In the second incident, a forklift was used to knock down an ATM at a SouthTrust bank in Conyers on June 24. The getaway moving truck -- also burned -- was found in Jasper County.
The latest incident took place on June 27 when a backhoe was used to pry an ATM from its base at a SouthTrust bank in Alpharetta. The machine was recovered the next morning inside a cargo truck abandoned behind an industrial park building in Forsyth County.
The truck had been reported stolen out of Walton County, said Forsyth police detective Jason Stover.
Police do not know how much cash was taken in the last two thefts.
Barry Schreiber, a professor of criminal justice at Minnesota's St. Cloud State University, said thefts of ATMs by heavy machinery is pretty rare. About 75 cases are reported nationwide every year, said Schreiber, who's tracked ATM crime for more than 20 years.
Schreiber says the thieves will probably keep going until their luck runs out - and it inevitably will.
"It seems there's never quite enough money [for them] to stop. But after the fourth or the fifth or the sixth time, the police will say 'enough's enough' and become much more vigilant," he said.
